263 - The Music of Bugonia with Composer Jerskin Fendrix

Academy Award®-nominated composer Jerskin Fendrix joins guest host Jon Burlingame to discuss his latest score for “Bugonia,” directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Fendrix shares how he developed the film’s striking — and at times paranoid — musical themes, shaped in part by his own emotional state during the writing and recording process. Lanthimos had deliberately kept him in the dark, forbidding him from reading the script before composing, a choice that profoundly influenced the tone of the score.

“I spent a lot of time by myself, doing all this kind of esoteric, bizarre research on bees and spaceships and so on. I knew that a lot of meetings were happening; I knew that the film was being made — the pre-production — none of which I was allowed to be privy to. I was starting to get a bit paranoid; I was starting to get a bit angsty about things. And all I was doing was really hoping what I was doing was right. And I think the reason that a lot of the music actually echoes the psychology — especially of Teddy, this kind of really frantic grandiosity, but paranoia, and so on — is because I was basically in the same position for at least a year, by virtue of Yorgos’s direction.”

—Jerskin Fendrix, Composer, “Bugonia”

You can watch our episode with Director Yorgos Lanthimos & Sound Designer Johnnie Burn on the Sound of “Bugonia” here.

Watch our previous episode with Jerskin Fendrix on the music of “Poor Things” here.

And be sure to check out “Bugonia,” now playing in theaters in Dolby Atmos®, where available.

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You can also check out the video for this episode on YouTube.

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